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What was your "Holy Shit! We're living in the future" moment?

Yuli Ban

Posted 14 October 2016 - 01:48 AM

Yuli Ban

Born Again Singularitarian

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20,619 posts

LocationNew Orleans, LA

I have talked about when I became a Born-Again Singularitarian, right? That was in 2014— March 2014 to be precise, and directly led to the first 'Yuli Banularity' that May.
The thing that triggered me being Born-Again was actually just a simple recognition, me becoming self-aware of the current state of sci-tech. I was marveling over the fact I had two robots— a robot fan and a Roomba— and that there were other sorts of robots out there, like ASIMO. In fact, this image burned into my brain back then. Hence why I tend to defend ASIMO so much; like a newborn bird first viewing its mother. It didn't help that ASIMO was having a bit of a world tour circa 2014 (hence why there are so many videos about ASIMO that can be dated to 2014), meaning I had a lot of material to work with.

And remember my friend, future events such as these will affect you in the future.

This cyberpunk-ass headline sounds like it's been ripped from a Shadowrun novel. Consider that this is South Korea we're talking about— possibly the only nation more technophilic than Japan— and you can understand my continued exasperation.

nomad likes this

And remember my friend, future events such as these will affect you in the future.

Posted 03 August 2017 - 01:03 AM

Miky617

Posted 19 January 2018 - 08:23 PM

Miky617

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26 posts

My moment happened a few months ago during a road trip hosted by my university. We were travelling on the interstate in a van using GPS navigation when I heard the GPS (it sounded like Siri but I'm not entirely sure which one they were using) piped up and said, "car stopped on the shoulder 1 mile ahead, switch to left lane". Sure enough, there was the car. She then went on to warn us of two potholes in the road and even roadkill. I was blown away by the fact that our GPS navigation is able to keep up with details like that, especially since it's much more transient and I would imagine more difficult to predict than something like traffic. Up to that point, I've felt like the advancements we've encountered have been slow to reach consumers and are much more subtle than we might expect them be, but hearing the GPS issue those suggestions was pretty striking in my opinion. I'm very excited to experience another moment where I'm blown away by something that feels futuristic right in front of me.

On a less personal note, I also had an intense moment of "we're living in the future" as I watched the live games between Lee Sedol and AlphaGo. It was easily one of the more exciting moments of the past few years, watching predictions come true decades in advance right on the screen in real-time. Now AlphaGo's successor has mastered chess in 4 hours and I'm sure there's far more in store for the DeepMind project team. When AI is able to play at or above human level in platforming games or puzzle solving games (ones that require creativity more so than logic), I don't even know how I'll react to that. I think it's a great exercise to practice refining and training these AI in popular games, since this not only encourages public engagement and interest on a relatable level, but it offers a much easier to understand glimpse into exactly how the AI is working under the constraints offered by the rules. It seems the results are much easier to evaluate than they are in the real world, and it certainly helps us decide what this particular AI is good at and what it needs improvement on. Of course, I'm not a particularly tech-savvy person so I'm probably not able to fully appreciate the magnitude of these achievements and what it'll take to grow further.

Miky617

Posted 19 January 2018 - 10:32 PM

It really struck me when I heard my home's security system's voice. It's literally nothing that wouldn't have existed ten years ago, but hearing this robotic female say "Doors and windows: on" made me think of Star Trek for some bizarre reason.

Also on a similar note, but something that I haven't really thought too much about until just recently, is that it's also pretty impressive how unrobotic digital assistant voices have gotten. Barring weird street names and a touch of uncanny valley, Siri does sound pretty normal over GPS as compared to what voice navigation sounded like a few years ago. We probably won't even notice when they finally sound just like we do, and it's exactly that kind of inconspicuousness that I think is one of the most outstanding features of upcoming consumer-grade AI

PhoenixRu

Posted 17 March 2019 - 09:59 AM

PhoenixRu

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518 posts

To me, there are many such moments. The last of them: visiting my young niece's school (located in new district built from scratch 2-3 years ago). Then I realized that "modernization of education" is not empty words.

In general, any visiting the former outskirts turned into modern neighborhoods makes you think: "wow, this place was different, the world is really changing!"

Some places in my city:

- So-called Postnikov ravine, recently the dangerous shithole, now the modern middle-class district.

tomasth

Posted 17 March 2019 - 02:22 PM

tomasth

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212 posts

Maybe its young people being inexperienced so are eaily impressed or have a different view of the future.

I I did not see anything in the last several decades as the future , just more of the past.
250 years is the refrence point of the of present past , not the ancient past (any more then the rise of homo sapiens sapiens).

Private space station , commercial level 5 autonomus cars , ar futuristic , even though I wont be mpressed with them thinking that this is the future (I'd be probably impressed with either
Curing aging or AGI ; those are really futuristic , as they are a different human condition).

PhoenixRu

Posted 17 March 2019 - 02:49 PM

PhoenixRu

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Members

518 posts

I did not see anything in the last several decades as the future , just more of the past.

I suspect people from 1960-s or 1970-s would be very impressed by personal computes connected into worldwide network, mobile phones and all the derivative gadgets, and their children would wish to own the personal drone.

The reason of why future "looks the same" - is because even the serious changes are slow enough for us to get used to. You may think that "nothing really happened" between 2009 and 2019, but if you missed all these years and jumped directly from 2009, you would notice a lot of good / bad / weird changes.

The same is true about future: in 2029 people will complain: "automated factories, police robots, AI-surgeons and deepdive reality... so what? It's all the same..."